September 8, 2025 • 32 mins
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
It's that time. Time, time, time, luck and load. The
Michael Arry Show is on the air. Things like libraries.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Everybody loves the concept of the library, right, the library,
Come on the library, the Pratt Library in Baltimore, the
Great Public Municipal Library, August institutions. You imagine the home library,
the private library of Henry Higgins.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
And he's got the ladder that he rolls around the high.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
Shells, and he goes up and he pulls off a
book and dusts it off, and ah ah, there's virgils
in neid. Ah, there's the writings of Aristotle. Ah yes, yes,
the great writings of history. The books, Bradberry's Fahrenheit four
or five. You don't want to burn the books, because
(01:33):
that is the knowledge. The books the place of learning
and truth be told. Ninety nine percent of people never
went to libraries, checked out a book, read the book,
brought it back. No, but the library was a place
you were supposed to respect.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
Like when you were a little kid and you knew
you were going to church.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
You might not known why yet, but you knew when
you go in there, because you'd have your your hair
all combed and your bow tie on, and well you
weren't supposed to fidget or make noise or nothing. Now
we're going to church. This is a serious place for
serious people. When everybody was on their best behavior. Ah,
the library. We all have such respect for the library. Uh, yes,
(02:18):
the library. We can't cut back on the library. And
I've had people over the years when I was on
city Council and fought to close the Downtown Library. But
since then, since I talk about it, I get a lot.
It's usually older white women, the kind of older white
women who love to correct your grammar if I drop
(02:39):
g's on Facebook, or or do something silly on Facebook,
or make a joke about language, you know, using language
inappropriately and obviously, so I mean it should be all right,
queen little. And these are the types of people that
love the school bar.
Speaker 3 (02:54):
You know, that's just me.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
I'm just really I just love the English language. You know,
you got to get it right, you know, I really have.
And like that's their thing, and they love they love that.
They love the library. It's one of those things that
everyone loves because you're supposed to love it. We can't
have cuts to the library, can we.
Speaker 3 (03:15):
Well?
Speaker 2 (03:16):
Uh, I don't know what are we funding now, but
we can't have cuts to the library the children. No
cuts to library children. Wait what yeah, no cuts library children.
All right, all the children have died off minorities. Minorities
need libraries because they're poor. Those poor people need some books,
books for the pores. Okay, well, let me ask you this.
(03:42):
How many new books are we adding to the collections?
She started curiosity. We're spending a lot of money on
new books. If so, what are those new books? Because
I don't want my tax dollars going to buying books
for the poors that are polluting their minds books. Michelle Obama, No,
she can donate those damn books. In fact, why don't
(04:05):
we have some rich folks donate to up keep the
library if it's that important. Biggest expensive library is the
staff who work there, reliable, good old fashioned Democrat voters.
Speaker 3 (04:18):
Biggest, biggest issue.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
With the Downtown library when I was there, a very
very expensive library, multi floor. Just the air conditioning alone
costs more than the mortgage on your house. Of course,
after you pay the mortgage on your house, then you
pay exorbitant taxes to the county so they can air
condition a library you've never been to.
Speaker 3 (04:36):
There's no parking there.
Speaker 2 (04:37):
There's one floor of underground parking, insufficient, it's impossible to
get to.
Speaker 3 (04:43):
But oh, we have to keep it.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
Yes, we have to keep it because a lot of
rich oil and gas guys from Houston. Their wives have
a hang up because when they go to New York
to buy purses and shoes and they.
Speaker 3 (04:56):
Tell them, we're down there from Houston. But we ain't
hicks like y'all think we is. We got libraries and things.
They got a chip on their shoulder.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
They don't want New Yorkers and Californians to think we're hillbillies.
We've got to have libraries, big, fancy, extravagant libraries. You know.
The only time the library ever came up, the only
time the library ever mattered, oh about once a week,
a homeless dude would walk through the halls wanking it. Now,
(05:26):
if you'd just stay over in the corner surfing the
porn on the free public computer for the homeless people.
And by the way, they're only for the homeless people.
Because once you get a filthy, smelling homeless dude wanking
it at ten o'clock in the morning over at the
(05:49):
public computers, well you can't let the kids come around
because he's wanking it to the kids, and women don't
want to go around because they'll get raped or murdered
and the guy will be back out on the street
in ten minutes. Yeah, that's what the library was. So
I dared propose, why don't we sell that piece of property.
I think it was worth seventeen million at the time.
(06:09):
We had an appraisal on the record. Why don't we
sell that. Rick Campo, who owns Camden Properties, has offered
to donate to us a nice big tract in midtown.
So let's say you got Smith got Louisiana's You got Smith, Louisiana,
(06:35):
Travis Milm. It was on Mileam outside of downtown cross
under the the UH Pierce elevated.
Speaker 3 (06:45):
And grew up there.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
And Rick Campo was going to donate and I believe
build a big, beautiful library. Now he gets a write
off for that, But my goodness, that was an act
of generosity. That was a no bless Obleizius. This was
a wonderful thing. You think we'd jump at it by
Why so we're not gonna do that. Library board will
(07:09):
eat me alive. The library board.
Speaker 3 (07:12):
Yeah, you know the women that go to New York.
We not, He'll belly down there in Houston. That give
me one in four thousand.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
Dollars purses Julia Roberts when she goes through the boutiques.
Speaker 3 (07:27):
On Rodeo Drive.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
Well, those people all serve on the library board and
other such boards, and once they get there, they don't
have anything else to do. Rose is not till eleven
this morning. It's nine o'clock. Once they get there, they decide, Oh,
now that I'm on the library board, I'm gonna do something.
We're gonna raise money for the library. Okay, raise all
(07:49):
the money you want. Also, we want the city to
match it. Wait, we don't have enough cops.
Speaker 3 (07:56):
You see.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
This is the reason I always prioritize things, because everything
can't be equally important, because if it is, nothing's important.
If everything's a top priority, every week at city council,
people would come down and say.
Speaker 3 (08:11):
This right here should be our top priority. No it's not.
That's number twenty seven on my list. I got a list.
Do you Oh you care about the library. I care
about cops. We're not the same. Call the library when
they're raping you. Bizar of Talk radio, The Michael Berry Show.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
Life.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
You say your family's struggling, trying to figure it all out.
Dad has taken a second job. Mom has taken a
second job. The old, raggedy cars are barely running. But
we can't afford a newer car, much less a new
car rents do. We don't have enough money for it.
(08:55):
Little Cis has got an ailment and they're coming after
payment for her treatment.
Speaker 3 (09:02):
Your waist short of cash.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
You've gone through the eggs in the fridge, You've gone
through the Kraft mac and cheese, the rice a roni.
You did hamburger help or with no hamburger.
Speaker 3 (09:12):
It's tough. Times are tough.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
You don't have enough money, and you give your son
money for lunch or for whatever extras he needs at school.
You give him ten dollars for the week, and you
find out that he has given that ten dollars to Bobby,
(09:37):
a kid he goes to school with who has not rich.
We got plenty of money because Bobby needed to borrow
it and hadn't paid it back. Is loaning money to
a friend such a terrible thing? Well, Polonius advised Larties
against it, But in any case, you think to yourself, hey,
(10:01):
that's extra egregious given the condition we're in. Well, we're
that poor family, and now now they're rearranging deck chairs
on the Titanic Lena Hidalgo's concerns. This is how out
of touch she is. We're gonna take more of your
(10:23):
money now. I will admit, your property tax are so
high that I can't afford to buy. She can, but
she's trying to, you know, let them eat cake kind
of commentary.
Speaker 3 (10:33):
You stupid pleabs. I feel bad for you too. I do.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
Sometimes I too have to pooh pooh and it doesn't
come out nice.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
I understand your worries. I got hungry the other day.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
Hungry I had to have my staff bring me a
Snickers and that was the worse five minutes of my life.
So I understand your hunger.
Speaker 3 (10:58):
I really do. This is the.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
Perfect example of how out of touch they really are. Meanwhile,
the paper of record, they're supposed to keep them honest,
Houston Chronicle, they are so obsessed with John Whitmer's bicycle
lanes that they can't see straight. We are now getting
weekly quote unquote investigative pieces on John Whitmeyer and the bicycles.
(11:27):
Same newspaper that couldn't be bothered to investigate the corruption
during Sylvester Turner's administration that added up to untold millions
of dollars during a time that they were telling people
they were going to shut off their water if you
use too much, and by too much, that was your
their standard, not yours. We had water mains busted and
gushing into the streets, rivers of gold taxpayer paid, gushing
(11:52):
through the streets.
Speaker 3 (11:53):
Nobody to fix.
Speaker 4 (11:54):
It because the fat black lady that was the head
of the water department had hired her brother who didn't
even have a truck, much lesser wrench, and he was
gonna fix them all.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
Well, he was gonna get the I think it was
a thirty million dollar contract to fix them all. He
wasn't gonna fix them hisself. A't no slave, And there
went all the money pissed away. But worse, the mains
never got turned off. And then the lit old lady
started getting six, seven, eight, nine, ten thousand dollars water bills. Well,
there's a lot of things you can go without paying
(12:33):
and they'll float you for a while, but your water bill,
City of Houston come out and turn off your water.
If there's one bill, people pay it's your water and
electric because they'll shut them off on you. So they
were shutting off people's water bills. But wait, I don't
have eight thousand dollars to pay a water bill. Too bad,
(12:53):
so said Sylvester. Didn't tell me to put it back on.
But wait, my water bill's been twenty one dollars for
eight years running. I check my taps, I turn everything off.
I don't run a shower, I run a little tub
of water. I take a bucket. Bath Well says it's
(13:13):
six thousand dollars here, turns out said he was making
a mistake cause a lot of people a lot of problems.
Speaker 3 (13:23):
Chronicle wasn't worried.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
You know who did that story, A little blonde girl
at Channel two, Amy Davis. And remember Sylvester Turner got real, real,
real ugly with her. There is one thing that you
never want to see, and that is how nasty a
bitchy gay man can be toward a woman. You've never
seen anything like it. It's not intuitive. Until you seen it,
(13:46):
you don't understand it. There is a nasty hatred for
such a thing, and it is really, really ugly. It's
unpleasant to watch. Well, now, the Houston Chronicle. There's more
to this story. I'm gonna tell you what it is. Houston
Chronicle is obsessed with all the problems we have in
city Houston. They're really upset that John Whitmeyer is taking
(14:09):
away some of the bicycle lanes and.
Speaker 3 (14:12):
We can't have that.
Speaker 2 (14:13):
We're to do an investigative peace. Oh there's a pultzer,
Go get them the pedal pulitzer.
Speaker 3 (14:20):
Oh get them Chronicle.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
Well, let me tell you what's actually going on there.
Rodney Ellis is the toast of the bicycle community. He's
made bicycling into a big issue. He does the tour
to Houston, he does the Remember they opened the they
opened bike lanes on the on the walkway next to
(14:44):
the Bayou in his district. And so there with the
little pee wee herman white people, this is what their
helmets on. This is so nice. We live in an
urban environment and we're out riding our bicycles on the weekend.
Speaker 3 (15:00):
People in Houston need to do more.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
Of this and get out of their cars because they're
killing the earth. But look at us, we're a bow.
Here comes one of Rodney's constituents. Knock the snot out
of them, take their phones, take their money, and take
their bicycles, enjoy precinct one, bitches, and they ride off
(15:25):
and they're left thinking, I'm glad I wore a helmet.
That was quite the lump on my head, it was.
And then they went to Rodney and he had nothing.
Speaker 3 (15:34):
To say to that.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
Oh yes, let's drag a bunch of lily white liberals
right through the hood along to Bayou where there's no
one to protect them and the cops can't get to them,
and let your constituents beat the snot out of them bicycles.
Speaker 3 (15:52):
Michael Berry, it was.
Speaker 4 (15:58):
On to stay.
Speaker 3 (15:59):
One hundre hundred and twenty five years.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
Ago Galveston's Great Storm. Eight thousand citizens perished that day.
I've read numbers as low as six and as high
as eight. It is generally accepted today that it's probably
(16:22):
closer to eight thousand people perished.
Speaker 3 (16:27):
It was a fifteen foot storm surge.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
It raced across the island and caused incredible destruction of
property and of course life. Property loss estimated at thirty
million dollars of nineteen hundred dollars. Considered the worst recorded
(16:53):
natural disaster ever to strike the North American continent. The
entire island was devastated one twenty five years ago today,
and it set off a chain of events that would
(17:13):
lead to for many of you, where you're sitting, standing,
or driving at this very moment, seeing the year nineteen hundred,
Galveston was making ground on the great port of the
then Gulf of Mexico now Gulf of America. And if
anybody ever says to you, but it was the Golf
(17:40):
of Mexico for four hundred years, you can't just change
the name. We called a men since the beginning of mankind,
and you changed their name. So there's no doubt in
New Orleans was the Bell of the South. It was
the port incredibly, incredibly important. And as a result of
(18:07):
that international trade. You'll notice that until very recently, all
of the great cities of the world, almost all the
great cities in the world I can name fewer than
five that don't follow this rule, are port cities, because
that's where the money was made. That was telecom and
(18:31):
computers and air travel. The port, including prior to the
train in the car, the individual transport, was everything goods people,
And with that came the carnival characters and the gypsies
and the frosters and the con men and the hustlers,
(18:56):
but also the artists and the artisans and the craftsmen
and the scholars, and so the great cities were located
on ports. And you had New Orleans, which was the
undisputed great port and the culture that came through it.
(19:17):
Linguists have traced the Galveston yacht accent to the Brooklyn accent,
and if you ever notice on certain words, once you're
aware of that, you will hear the Brooklyn accent in
New York. And that's because that was the number one
trade route. You would take goods, not by FedEx, not
(19:39):
by train yet, but around the eastern seaboard and up
through the Gulf, and you would land them at New Orleans,
and from there you would send them out into the land.
If it was much east of New Orleans, it would come.
It would come west from the Florida ports and the Carolinas,
(20:03):
but mostly and if it was much west of New Orleans,
it would come eastward from California and those great ports.
But there was this swath of people, largely Bohemian Polish German,
who had landed in Texas and were starting to swell
(20:24):
in population and you needed to service that. And the
port of Galveston was that port. An amazing thing happened.
That represents the greatness of the people who had inhabited
this region of the country.
Speaker 3 (20:43):
And the world.
Speaker 2 (20:44):
And that is the understanding that this is our moment. Sure,
if you look at a map from west to east,
left to right, you can see that within the harbor
of that gulf, you need to be able to bring
things up into the dead center of the country and
then be able to send them northward, eastward, westward to
(21:07):
their final destinations. That was commerce, that was wealth creation.
But Galveston couldn't be it. It was a point. There
were no jetties, there was no means by which to
break the massive, massive flooding that would occur as a
result of storms hurricanes. So three Houstonians. It was Kirby
(21:36):
of Kirby Lumber, It was Jones, and I think it
was Rice. Oh no, maybe it was Will Clayton, the
cotton the man who created the nation's cotton exchange in
downtown Houston.
Speaker 3 (21:51):
The building where he did.
Speaker 2 (21:51):
It, beautiful, beautiful building, is still there to this day.
But these three titans had such a vision and they
went to DC with an idea that people laughed about.
Speaker 3 (22:02):
It was written at the time. It's a laughable idea.
Speaker 2 (22:05):
They were gonna pledge a million dollars and ask the
federal government for a match of another million dollars, and
they were gonna build inland a deep water port just
short of fifty miles in. Never been done before and
never been done since. See what we'll do is, if
(22:27):
you look down here, you got Gallason. This isn't the
last storm that's gonna come in and wipe that place out.
Speaker 3 (22:34):
That's not a reliable place.
Speaker 2 (22:37):
To build your infrastructure. We'll move it up here into
this swamp. This y'all probably don't know this, but Houston is,
for all intents and purposes, a swamp. It's mosquito infested,
it's humid, it's it would surprise you.
Speaker 3 (22:54):
It surprised you that people live. They're shocking.
Speaker 2 (22:57):
So we're gonna dredge a deep water port. That means
deep water vessels, the biggest ships in the world at
the time that are delivering products have to be able
to draft in that water. This can't be a bathtub.
It's got to be big enough that we can get
them down in there. So the opposition was well, that's
(23:20):
the dumbest idea. It's a one way street into nowhere.
How you going to get them back? Ah, We'll have
an area at the end, like when you drive into
a cul de sac, so you can make the loop.
We'll call it the turning basin, and we'll have them
go down in there and turn around and come back out.
(23:41):
And they did. It is hard to imagine in twenty
twenty five how that decision affected if you live in
the greater Houston area, how that decision, how that movement,
how that effort changed your life, because of course you
live in Houston. Maybe you've lived in Houston your whole life.
Speaker 3 (24:00):
I mean, where else would the Oilers play? What else
would they be named?
Speaker 2 (24:04):
Where else would a Keen win two championships and Clyde
come home?
Speaker 3 (24:09):
Where else would the Astros and Terry Pool play.
Speaker 2 (24:13):
If it hadn't been for that court you as you know,
it would not be a top fifty city.
Speaker 3 (24:19):
I mean, yes, it's great weather that was going to
attract people.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
And yes, Mosquito see the idea of the library. I'm
not against libraries. I dare say I read more than
ninety five percent of people. My mother was a voracious
(24:41):
reader and taught me to be. Once a week. My
big treat during the summer was to get to go
on her grocery shopping run into Orange.
Speaker 3 (24:52):
We would go in. We would would go to the library.
Speaker 2 (24:58):
Because groceries were last, because back then you lived in
constant fear.
Speaker 3 (25:03):
Of your milk spoiling. If you were in town and
your mother's friends saw you and said, stop, buy for
a cup of coffee. My mom didn't drink.
Speaker 2 (25:13):
Her friend Billy Tucker, would say, stop, buy for a
cup of coffee.
Speaker 3 (25:17):
Just a cup. You're right, you don't stay long if
you don't want to. Oh I'd love to, but I
got milk in the backseat. Couldn't do that.
Speaker 2 (25:25):
You already either didn't have air conditioning in the early
cars I remember, or the air conditioning had wasn't worth
a damn. And you certainly weren't going to leave your
car running outside. Oh my goodness, can you imagine leave
the air conditioning on. That would not only destroy the environment,
it costs you a hundred dollars. So we would go
(25:47):
in and we'd go to the library and we'd check
out our books, our requisite books, and bring back the
books we'd read before I knew where the children's section was,
so I'd go over there and sit. We used to
call it Indian style. What are they call it now,
Chris cross apple sauce. You know, all these things to
(26:07):
do favors to the Indians are not helping the Indians,
They're not.
Speaker 3 (26:13):
Anyway.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
I'd go sit in that area until she'd find her books.
She'd come over and we'd go and there was miss Smith.
Betty Smith played baseball against her son, Sheldon, had the
biggest crush crush on her. We'd check out our books.
My mom would let me do it.
Speaker 3 (26:30):
I break thrill. We'd leave from there and we'd.
Speaker 2 (26:35):
Do our various errands that she had for the day,
and then we'd go to the grocery store. The library
was a happy place for me during the summer. I
didn't realize until later I got on her nerves. You know,
you love your kids, but sometimes you don't mind stashing
them with ma'mll or you know, somewhere for a minute.
(26:55):
And so during the summer they had the summer readers
or leaders, whereupon you would drop your kid off, and
we knew all the staff there. We would like my aunts,
drop me off, go inside and you'd sit there. When
I was in high school, I needed to pad my
resume and I wasn't wanted to teach anyway, and so
(27:19):
the library put an article in the in the Orange
Leader that they needed literacy teachers.
Speaker 3 (27:26):
So I went down. I hadn't thought about this since
that day, mom. I went down, starting as a freshman
through my senior year and volunteered as a literacy teacher,
basically just reading, basic reading and writing. I had no
training in how to teach literacy. I just knew I
could read, and I enjoyed it, and I could sipher
(27:46):
most anything. So I did.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
And I remember, you know, looking back now, I wouldn't
let my kid near somebody like this, But it was
like a five time felon this white dude that looked
like I mean, he was straight out of the met trailer.
And I felt so sorry for this guy because I
knew a lot of people, I had relatives like this,
and he was trying to turn his life around and
he'd just gotten out in part of the terms of
(28:11):
his probation, he brought the documents with him for me
to read because he couldn't read them, or that he
had to do this this and this, but one of
them was engage in some sort of a career training.
Well before he did career training, we did the library.
The library in Orange was and there is nothing wrong
with this, also a center of certain of the soft
(28:35):
social services. The problem with the library is you tie
up land. Every square inch that a government building owns
is a square inch that the private sector who owned
the country. The government doesn't own the country. It's a
square inch that you can't develop. You can't live on it,
you can't build on it, you can't rent on it,
(28:56):
you can't manufacture on it, you can't do anything on it.
You also take it out of production from the tax base,
so it costs you extra money in that way. You
have to air condition it. It's no small feet in
a big building. You'd be surprised. You have to have
staff that's not cheap. You typically have to have some
kind of security because you only have women there at night,
(29:19):
and the Democrats will come in and rape them and
beat them over the head and steal any money that
might possibly be there. But the library is a good
and noble thing, or it was. It has outlived its usefulness.
Why is it that we can raise money for MSMD, cancer,
the heart, brain function and everything else. But we can't
(29:43):
raise the money for the library. Why do we need
so many libraries? You ever asked this question? Oh, because
inner city kids need computer access.
Speaker 3 (29:57):
I actually agree with that wholeheartedly.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
How about this, How about we book the amount of
money that we're spending in the library in the hood.
We spend this on computers, but nobody connected with Rodney ls.
That will be sent to each kid and you'll check
out a computer for the year, and we'll do it
(30:21):
through the local constable's office so they'll know constables are
good people.
Speaker 3 (30:26):
And then we don't have to run the library. We
don't have to pay pension.
Speaker 2 (30:29):
You know, you know, do you know how much we're
paying in pensions for a library for librarians over the years.
I don't have anything against librarians. They're buying large, wonderful people,
have great experiences library. Nobody says better. Problem is they
don't say sh anymore. Got a library now?
Speaker 3 (30:47):
They don't say shush. They're afraid to because the people
to whom they're saying shush are not going to be
sure just because.
Speaker 2 (30:53):
They're not slave. So you've got you've got all this
money being spent, and now they'll admit it's actually just
a meeting place, a community center. Okay, So if we
agree that in poor neighborhoods, kids deserve an opportunity, and
I believe they do, and that computers will help, why
(31:15):
make them get mugged on the way to the library
to get there. By the way, why didn't the school
do it? There's no homeschooling in poor black neighborhoods anyway,
So it's the school. How much money you put Do
you know that at the school we're spending money on
a computer and at the library we're spending money on
a computer. Sounds duplicative, sounds wasteful, But think how much
(31:39):
good that kid would do if he had a computer
at home instead. I'm not saying we need to buy computers,
but I'm saying it, rather do that than waste all
this money on a building, And then if you sold
those buildings, you'd overnight have a cash injection.
Speaker 3 (31:55):
Wouldn't that be great?
Speaker 2 (31:57):
There's other community gathering places, And by the way, why
are you taking business away from private sector businesses that
had hoped that they would be a community gathering place.
But most of all, you can't afford it, and in
your home, when you can't afford things, you cut them.
(32:17):
You don't just keep screaming at the neighbors. I can't
afford anything, so I have to spend more money on it.
But they do because at the end of the day,
it's not leading a head of all those money.
Speaker 3 (32:29):
It's you.
It's that time. Time, time, time, luck and load. The
Michael Arry Show is on the air. Things like libraries.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Everybody loves the concept of the library, right, the library,
Come on the library, the Pratt Library in Baltimore, the
Great Public Municipal Library, August institutions. You imagine the home library,
the private library of Henry Higgins.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
And he's got the ladder that he rolls around the high.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
Shells, and he goes up and he pulls off a
book and dusts it off, and ah ah, there's virgils
in neid. Ah, there's the writings of Aristotle. Ah yes, yes,
the great writings of history. The books, Bradberry's Fahrenheit four
or five. You don't want to burn the books, because
(01:33):
that is the knowledge. The books the place of learning
and truth be told. Ninety nine percent of people never
went to libraries, checked out a book, read the book,
brought it back. No, but the library was a place
you were supposed to respect.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
Like when you were a little kid and you knew
you were going to church.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
You might not known why yet, but you knew when
you go in there, because you'd have your your hair
all combed and your bow tie on, and well you
weren't supposed to fidget or make noise or nothing. Now
we're going to church. This is a serious place for
serious people. When everybody was on their best behavior. Ah,
the library. We all have such respect for the library. Uh, yes,
(02:18):
the library. We can't cut back on the library. And
I've had people over the years when I was on
city Council and fought to close the Downtown Library. But
since then, since I talk about it, I get a lot.
It's usually older white women, the kind of older white
women who love to correct your grammar if I drop
(02:39):
g's on Facebook, or or do something silly on Facebook,
or make a joke about language, you know, using language
inappropriately and obviously, so I mean it should be all right,
queen little. And these are the types of people that
love the school bar.
Speaker 3 (02:54):
You know, that's just me.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
I'm just really I just love the English language. You know,
you got to get it right, you know, I really have.
And like that's their thing, and they love they love that.
They love the library. It's one of those things that
everyone loves because you're supposed to love it. We can't
have cuts to the library, can we.
Speaker 3 (03:15):
Well?
Speaker 2 (03:16):
Uh, I don't know what are we funding now, but
we can't have cuts to the library the children. No
cuts to library children. Wait what yeah, no cuts library children.
All right, all the children have died off minorities. Minorities
need libraries because they're poor. Those poor people need some books,
books for the pores. Okay, well, let me ask you this.
(03:42):
How many new books are we adding to the collections?
She started curiosity. We're spending a lot of money on
new books. If so, what are those new books? Because
I don't want my tax dollars going to buying books
for the poors that are polluting their minds books. Michelle Obama, No,
she can donate those damn books. In fact, why don't
(04:05):
we have some rich folks donate to up keep the
library if it's that important. Biggest expensive library is the
staff who work there, reliable, good old fashioned Democrat voters.
Speaker 3 (04:18):
Biggest, biggest issue.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
With the Downtown library when I was there, a very
very expensive library, multi floor. Just the air conditioning alone
costs more than the mortgage on your house. Of course,
after you pay the mortgage on your house, then you
pay exorbitant taxes to the county so they can air
condition a library you've never been to.
Speaker 3 (04:36):
There's no parking there.
Speaker 2 (04:37):
There's one floor of underground parking, insufficient, it's impossible to
get to.
Speaker 3 (04:43):
But oh, we have to keep it.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
Yes, we have to keep it because a lot of
rich oil and gas guys from Houston. Their wives have
a hang up because when they go to New York
to buy purses and shoes and they.
Speaker 3 (04:56):
Tell them, we're down there from Houston. But we ain't
hicks like y'all think we is. We got libraries and things.
They got a chip on their shoulder.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
They don't want New Yorkers and Californians to think we're hillbillies.
We've got to have libraries, big, fancy, extravagant libraries. You know.
The only time the library ever came up, the only
time the library ever mattered, oh about once a week,
a homeless dude would walk through the halls wanking it. Now,
(05:26):
if you'd just stay over in the corner surfing the
porn on the free public computer for the homeless people.
And by the way, they're only for the homeless people.
Because once you get a filthy, smelling homeless dude wanking
it at ten o'clock in the morning over at the
(05:49):
public computers, well you can't let the kids come around
because he's wanking it to the kids, and women don't
want to go around because they'll get raped or murdered
and the guy will be back out on the street
in ten minutes. Yeah, that's what the library was. So
I dared propose, why don't we sell that piece of property.
I think it was worth seventeen million at the time.
(06:09):
We had an appraisal on the record. Why don't we
sell that. Rick Campo, who owns Camden Properties, has offered
to donate to us a nice big tract in midtown.
So let's say you got Smith got Louisiana's You got Smith, Louisiana,
(06:35):
Travis Milm. It was on Mileam outside of downtown cross
under the the UH Pierce elevated.
Speaker 3 (06:45):
And grew up there.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
And Rick Campo was going to donate and I believe
build a big, beautiful library. Now he gets a write
off for that, But my goodness, that was an act
of generosity. That was a no bless Obleizius. This was
a wonderful thing. You think we'd jump at it by
Why so we're not gonna do that. Library board will
(07:09):
eat me alive. The library board.
Speaker 3 (07:12):
Yeah, you know the women that go to New York.
We not, He'll belly down there in Houston. That give
me one in four thousand.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
Dollars purses Julia Roberts when she goes through the boutiques.
Speaker 3 (07:27):
On Rodeo Drive.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
Well, those people all serve on the library board and
other such boards, and once they get there, they don't
have anything else to do. Rose is not till eleven
this morning. It's nine o'clock. Once they get there, they decide, Oh,
now that I'm on the library board, I'm gonna do something.
We're gonna raise money for the library. Okay, raise all
(07:49):
the money you want. Also, we want the city to
match it. Wait, we don't have enough cops.
Speaker 3 (07:56):
You see.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
This is the reason I always prioritize things, because everything
can't be equally important, because if it is, nothing's important.
If everything's a top priority, every week at city council,
people would come down and say.
Speaker 3 (08:11):
This right here should be our top priority. No it's not.
That's number twenty seven on my list. I got a list.
Do you Oh you care about the library. I care
about cops. We're not the same. Call the library when
they're raping you. Bizar of Talk radio, The Michael Berry Show.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
Life.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
You say your family's struggling, trying to figure it all out.
Dad has taken a second job. Mom has taken a
second job. The old, raggedy cars are barely running. But
we can't afford a newer car, much less a new
car rents do. We don't have enough money for it.
(08:55):
Little Cis has got an ailment and they're coming after
payment for her treatment.
Speaker 3 (09:02):
Your waist short of cash.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
You've gone through the eggs in the fridge, You've gone
through the Kraft mac and cheese, the rice a roni.
You did hamburger help or with no hamburger.
Speaker 3 (09:12):
It's tough. Times are tough.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
You don't have enough money, and you give your son
money for lunch or for whatever extras he needs at school.
You give him ten dollars for the week, and you
find out that he has given that ten dollars to Bobby,
(09:37):
a kid he goes to school with who has not rich.
We got plenty of money because Bobby needed to borrow
it and hadn't paid it back. Is loaning money to
a friend such a terrible thing? Well, Polonius advised Larties
against it, But in any case, you think to yourself, hey,
(10:01):
that's extra egregious given the condition we're in. Well, we're
that poor family, and now now they're rearranging deck chairs
on the Titanic Lena Hidalgo's concerns. This is how out
of touch she is. We're gonna take more of your
(10:23):
money now. I will admit, your property tax are so
high that I can't afford to buy. She can, but
she's trying to, you know, let them eat cake kind
of commentary.
Speaker 3 (10:33):
You stupid pleabs. I feel bad for you too. I do.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
Sometimes I too have to pooh pooh and it doesn't
come out nice.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
I understand your worries. I got hungry the other day.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
Hungry I had to have my staff bring me a
Snickers and that was the worse five minutes of my life.
So I understand your hunger.
Speaker 3 (10:58):
I really do. This is the.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
Perfect example of how out of touch they really are. Meanwhile,
the paper of record, they're supposed to keep them honest,
Houston Chronicle, they are so obsessed with John Whitmer's bicycle
lanes that they can't see straight. We are now getting
weekly quote unquote investigative pieces on John Whitmeyer and the bicycles.
(11:27):
Same newspaper that couldn't be bothered to investigate the corruption
during Sylvester Turner's administration that added up to untold millions
of dollars during a time that they were telling people
they were going to shut off their water if you
use too much, and by too much, that was your
their standard, not yours. We had water mains busted and
gushing into the streets, rivers of gold taxpayer paid, gushing
(11:52):
through the streets.
Speaker 3 (11:53):
Nobody to fix.
Speaker 4 (11:54):
It because the fat black lady that was the head
of the water department had hired her brother who didn't
even have a truck, much lesser wrench, and he was
gonna fix them all.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
Well, he was gonna get the I think it was
a thirty million dollar contract to fix them all. He
wasn't gonna fix them hisself. A't no slave, And there
went all the money pissed away. But worse, the mains
never got turned off. And then the lit old lady
started getting six, seven, eight, nine, ten thousand dollars water bills. Well,
there's a lot of things you can go without paying
(12:33):
and they'll float you for a while, but your water bill,
City of Houston come out and turn off your water.
If there's one bill, people pay it's your water and
electric because they'll shut them off on you. So they
were shutting off people's water bills. But wait, I don't
have eight thousand dollars to pay a water bill. Too bad,
(12:53):
so said Sylvester. Didn't tell me to put it back on.
But wait, my water bill's been twenty one dollars for
eight years running. I check my taps, I turn everything off.
I don't run a shower, I run a little tub
of water. I take a bucket. Bath Well says it's
(13:13):
six thousand dollars here, turns out said he was making
a mistake cause a lot of people a lot of problems.
Speaker 3 (13:23):
Chronicle wasn't worried.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
You know who did that story, A little blonde girl
at Channel two, Amy Davis. And remember Sylvester Turner got real, real,
real ugly with her. There is one thing that you
never want to see, and that is how nasty a
bitchy gay man can be toward a woman. You've never
seen anything like it. It's not intuitive. Until you seen it,
(13:46):
you don't understand it. There is a nasty hatred for
such a thing, and it is really, really ugly. It's
unpleasant to watch. Well, now, the Houston Chronicle. There's more
to this story. I'm gonna tell you what it is. Houston
Chronicle is obsessed with all the problems we have in
city Houston. They're really upset that John Whitmeyer is taking
(14:09):
away some of the bicycle lanes and.
Speaker 3 (14:12):
We can't have that.
Speaker 2 (14:13):
We're to do an investigative peace. Oh there's a pultzer,
Go get them the pedal pulitzer.
Speaker 3 (14:20):
Oh get them Chronicle.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
Well, let me tell you what's actually going on there.
Rodney Ellis is the toast of the bicycle community. He's
made bicycling into a big issue. He does the tour
to Houston, he does the Remember they opened the they
opened bike lanes on the on the walkway next to
(14:44):
the Bayou in his district. And so there with the
little pee wee herman white people, this is what their
helmets on. This is so nice. We live in an
urban environment and we're out riding our bicycles on the weekend.
Speaker 3 (15:00):
People in Houston need to do more.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
Of this and get out of their cars because they're
killing the earth. But look at us, we're a bow.
Here comes one of Rodney's constituents. Knock the snot out
of them, take their phones, take their money, and take
their bicycles, enjoy precinct one, bitches, and they ride off
(15:25):
and they're left thinking, I'm glad I wore a helmet.
That was quite the lump on my head, it was.
And then they went to Rodney and he had nothing.
Speaker 3 (15:34):
To say to that.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
Oh yes, let's drag a bunch of lily white liberals
right through the hood along to Bayou where there's no
one to protect them and the cops can't get to them,
and let your constituents beat the snot out of them bicycles.
Speaker 3 (15:52):
Michael Berry, it was.
Speaker 4 (15:58):
On to stay.
Speaker 3 (15:59):
One hundre hundred and twenty five years.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
Ago Galveston's Great Storm. Eight thousand citizens perished that day.
I've read numbers as low as six and as high
as eight. It is generally accepted today that it's probably
(16:22):
closer to eight thousand people perished.
Speaker 3 (16:27):
It was a fifteen foot storm surge.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
It raced across the island and caused incredible destruction of
property and of course life. Property loss estimated at thirty
million dollars of nineteen hundred dollars. Considered the worst recorded
(16:53):
natural disaster ever to strike the North American continent. The
entire island was devastated one twenty five years ago today,
and it set off a chain of events that would
(17:13):
lead to for many of you, where you're sitting, standing,
or driving at this very moment, seeing the year nineteen hundred,
Galveston was making ground on the great port of the
then Gulf of Mexico now Gulf of America. And if
anybody ever says to you, but it was the Golf
(17:40):
of Mexico for four hundred years, you can't just change
the name. We called a men since the beginning of mankind,
and you changed their name. So there's no doubt in
New Orleans was the Bell of the South. It was
the port incredibly, incredibly important. And as a result of
(18:07):
that international trade. You'll notice that until very recently, all
of the great cities of the world, almost all the
great cities in the world I can name fewer than
five that don't follow this rule, are port cities, because
that's where the money was made. That was telecom and
(18:31):
computers and air travel. The port, including prior to the
train in the car, the individual transport, was everything goods people,
And with that came the carnival characters and the gypsies
and the frosters and the con men and the hustlers,
(18:56):
but also the artists and the artisans and the craftsmen
and the scholars, and so the great cities were located
on ports. And you had New Orleans, which was the
undisputed great port and the culture that came through it.
(19:17):
Linguists have traced the Galveston yacht accent to the Brooklyn accent,
and if you ever notice on certain words, once you're
aware of that, you will hear the Brooklyn accent in
New York. And that's because that was the number one
trade route. You would take goods, not by FedEx, not
(19:39):
by train yet, but around the eastern seaboard and up
through the Gulf, and you would land them at New Orleans,
and from there you would send them out into the land.
If it was much east of New Orleans, it would come.
It would come west from the Florida ports and the Carolinas,
(20:03):
but mostly and if it was much west of New Orleans,
it would come eastward from California and those great ports.
But there was this swath of people, largely Bohemian Polish German,
who had landed in Texas and were starting to swell
(20:24):
in population and you needed to service that. And the
port of Galveston was that port. An amazing thing happened.
That represents the greatness of the people who had inhabited
this region of the country.
Speaker 3 (20:43):
And the world.
Speaker 2 (20:44):
And that is the understanding that this is our moment. Sure,
if you look at a map from west to east,
left to right, you can see that within the harbor
of that gulf, you need to be able to bring
things up into the dead center of the country and
then be able to send them northward, eastward, westward to
(21:07):
their final destinations. That was commerce, that was wealth creation.
But Galveston couldn't be it. It was a point. There
were no jetties, there was no means by which to
break the massive, massive flooding that would occur as a
result of storms hurricanes. So three Houstonians. It was Kirby
(21:36):
of Kirby Lumber, It was Jones, and I think it
was Rice. Oh no, maybe it was Will Clayton, the
cotton the man who created the nation's cotton exchange in
downtown Houston.
Speaker 3 (21:51):
The building where he did.
Speaker 2 (21:51):
It, beautiful, beautiful building, is still there to this day.
But these three titans had such a vision and they
went to DC with an idea that people laughed about.
Speaker 3 (22:02):
It was written at the time. It's a laughable idea.
Speaker 2 (22:05):
They were gonna pledge a million dollars and ask the
federal government for a match of another million dollars, and
they were gonna build inland a deep water port just
short of fifty miles in. Never been done before and
never been done since. See what we'll do is, if
(22:27):
you look down here, you got Gallason. This isn't the
last storm that's gonna come in and wipe that place out.
Speaker 3 (22:34):
That's not a reliable place.
Speaker 2 (22:37):
To build your infrastructure. We'll move it up here into
this swamp. This y'all probably don't know this, but Houston is,
for all intents and purposes, a swamp. It's mosquito infested,
it's humid, it's it would surprise you.
Speaker 3 (22:54):
It surprised you that people live. They're shocking.
Speaker 2 (22:57):
So we're gonna dredge a deep water port. That means
deep water vessels, the biggest ships in the world at
the time that are delivering products have to be able
to draft in that water. This can't be a bathtub.
It's got to be big enough that we can get
them down in there. So the opposition was well, that's
(23:20):
the dumbest idea. It's a one way street into nowhere.
How you going to get them back? Ah, We'll have
an area at the end, like when you drive into
a cul de sac, so you can make the loop.
We'll call it the turning basin, and we'll have them
go down in there and turn around and come back out.
(23:41):
And they did. It is hard to imagine in twenty
twenty five how that decision affected if you live in
the greater Houston area, how that decision, how that movement,
how that effort changed your life, because of course you
live in Houston. Maybe you've lived in Houston your whole life.
Speaker 3 (24:00):
I mean, where else would the Oilers play? What else
would they be named?
Speaker 2 (24:04):
Where else would a Keen win two championships and Clyde
come home?
Speaker 3 (24:09):
Where else would the Astros and Terry Pool play.
Speaker 2 (24:13):
If it hadn't been for that court you as you know,
it would not be a top fifty city.
Speaker 3 (24:19):
I mean, yes, it's great weather that was going to
attract people.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
And yes, Mosquito see the idea of the library. I'm
not against libraries. I dare say I read more than
ninety five percent of people. My mother was a voracious
(24:41):
reader and taught me to be. Once a week. My
big treat during the summer was to get to go
on her grocery shopping run into Orange.
Speaker 3 (24:52):
We would go in. We would would go to the library.
Speaker 2 (24:58):
Because groceries were last, because back then you lived in
constant fear.
Speaker 3 (25:03):
Of your milk spoiling. If you were in town and
your mother's friends saw you and said, stop, buy for
a cup of coffee. My mom didn't drink.
Speaker 2 (25:13):
Her friend Billy Tucker, would say, stop, buy for a
cup of coffee.
Speaker 3 (25:17):
Just a cup. You're right, you don't stay long if
you don't want to. Oh I'd love to, but I
got milk in the backseat. Couldn't do that.
Speaker 2 (25:25):
You already either didn't have air conditioning in the early
cars I remember, or the air conditioning had wasn't worth
a damn. And you certainly weren't going to leave your
car running outside. Oh my goodness, can you imagine leave
the air conditioning on. That would not only destroy the environment,
it costs you a hundred dollars. So we would go
(25:47):
in and we'd go to the library and we'd check
out our books, our requisite books, and bring back the
books we'd read before I knew where the children's section was,
so I'd go over there and sit. We used to
call it Indian style. What are they call it now,
Chris cross apple sauce. You know, all these things to
(26:07):
do favors to the Indians are not helping the Indians,
They're not.
Speaker 3 (26:13):
Anyway.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
I'd go sit in that area until she'd find her books.
She'd come over and we'd go and there was miss Smith.
Betty Smith played baseball against her son, Sheldon, had the
biggest crush crush on her. We'd check out our books.
My mom would let me do it.
Speaker 3 (26:30):
I break thrill. We'd leave from there and we'd.
Speaker 2 (26:35):
Do our various errands that she had for the day,
and then we'd go to the grocery store. The library
was a happy place for me during the summer. I
didn't realize until later I got on her nerves. You know,
you love your kids, but sometimes you don't mind stashing
them with ma'mll or you know, somewhere for a minute.
(26:55):
And so during the summer they had the summer readers
or leaders, whereupon you would drop your kid off, and
we knew all the staff there. We would like my aunts,
drop me off, go inside and you'd sit there. When
I was in high school, I needed to pad my
resume and I wasn't wanted to teach anyway, and so
(27:19):
the library put an article in the in the Orange
Leader that they needed literacy teachers.
Speaker 3 (27:26):
So I went down. I hadn't thought about this since
that day, mom. I went down, starting as a freshman
through my senior year and volunteered as a literacy teacher,
basically just reading, basic reading and writing. I had no
training in how to teach literacy. I just knew I
could read, and I enjoyed it, and I could sipher
(27:46):
most anything. So I did.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
And I remember, you know, looking back now, I wouldn't
let my kid near somebody like this, But it was
like a five time felon this white dude that looked
like I mean, he was straight out of the met trailer.
And I felt so sorry for this guy because I
knew a lot of people, I had relatives like this,
and he was trying to turn his life around and
he'd just gotten out in part of the terms of
(28:11):
his probation, he brought the documents with him for me
to read because he couldn't read them, or that he
had to do this this and this, but one of
them was engage in some sort of a career training.
Well before he did career training, we did the library.
The library in Orange was and there is nothing wrong
with this, also a center of certain of the soft
(28:35):
social services. The problem with the library is you tie
up land. Every square inch that a government building owns
is a square inch that the private sector who owned
the country. The government doesn't own the country. It's a
square inch that you can't develop. You can't live on it,
you can't build on it, you can't rent on it,
(28:56):
you can't manufacture on it, you can't do anything on it.
You also take it out of production from the tax base,
so it costs you extra money in that way. You
have to air condition it. It's no small feet in
a big building. You'd be surprised. You have to have
staff that's not cheap. You typically have to have some
kind of security because you only have women there at night,
(29:19):
and the Democrats will come in and rape them and
beat them over the head and steal any money that
might possibly be there. But the library is a good
and noble thing, or it was. It has outlived its usefulness.
Why is it that we can raise money for MSMD, cancer,
the heart, brain function and everything else. But we can't
(29:43):
raise the money for the library. Why do we need
so many libraries? You ever asked this question? Oh, because
inner city kids need computer access.
Speaker 3 (29:57):
I actually agree with that wholeheartedly.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
How about this, How about we book the amount of
money that we're spending in the library in the hood.
We spend this on computers, but nobody connected with Rodney ls.
That will be sent to each kid and you'll check
out a computer for the year, and we'll do it
(30:21):
through the local constable's office so they'll know constables are
good people.
Speaker 3 (30:26):
And then we don't have to run the library. We
don't have to pay pension.
Speaker 2 (30:29):
You know, you know, do you know how much we're
paying in pensions for a library for librarians over the years.
I don't have anything against librarians. They're buying large, wonderful people,
have great experiences library. Nobody says better. Problem is they
don't say sh anymore. Got a library now?
Speaker 3 (30:47):
They don't say shush. They're afraid to because the people
to whom they're saying shush are not going to be
sure just because.
Speaker 2 (30:53):
They're not slave. So you've got you've got all this
money being spent, and now they'll admit it's actually just
a meeting place, a community center. Okay, So if we
agree that in poor neighborhoods, kids deserve an opportunity, and
I believe they do, and that computers will help, why
(31:15):
make them get mugged on the way to the library
to get there. By the way, why didn't the school
do it? There's no homeschooling in poor black neighborhoods anyway,
So it's the school. How much money you put Do
you know that at the school we're spending money on
a computer and at the library we're spending money on
a computer. Sounds duplicative, sounds wasteful, But think how much
(31:39):
good that kid would do if he had a computer
at home instead. I'm not saying we need to buy computers,
but I'm saying it, rather do that than waste all
this money on a building, And then if you sold
those buildings, you'd overnight have a cash injection.
Speaker 3 (31:55):
Wouldn't that be great?
Speaker 2 (31:57):
There's other community gathering places, And by the way, why
are you taking business away from private sector businesses that
had hoped that they would be a community gathering place.
But most of all, you can't afford it, and in
your home, when you can't afford things, you cut them.
(32:17):
You don't just keep screaming at the neighbors. I can't
afford anything, so I have to spend more money on it.
But they do because at the end of the day,
it's not leading a head of all those money.
Speaker 3 (32:29):
It's you.
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